It just cracks me up....

[Blue Bear Sound]

...to read threads where people talk about "recording analog" and then refer to PortaStudios or cassette recorders.... as if these kinds of devices were ever in the running as serious analog recording tools!

And then to make matters worse - to compare budget analog to digital!!!

Let's get something straight - budget analog was never responsible for any of the "classic sounds" -- when music industry vets talk about recording to analog, they're to high-end multitrack/mixdown units, not $200 cassette recorders.............

The only thing you're adding to your signal in budget analog is a lot of noise and mechnical motor artifacts (not to mention signal degradation due to Noise Reduction mistracking...) -- budget digital, while still nowhere near comparable to high-end analog, allows for far more accurate recording and reproduction than a PortaStudio will ever get you....

Just something to think about........!

 

[Badger]

So, that part of it is not in your fingers?

 

[ambi]

I was just holding my hand, kinda cuped around my mouth while reading. I sometimes do that when reading. And then my head went all hazy and blury and i kinda forgot that my hand existed. And then i felt this thing on my face and it was my hand and it was really disturbing.

Bluebear is king.

 

[mixmkr]

-- budget digital, while still nowhere near comparable to high-end analog, allows for far more accurate recording and reproduction than a PortaStudio will ever get you....

Just something to think about........!

what exactly are you calling "budget digital"? an ADAT?... a computer with a $500 soundcard? VS a Mitsubishi X80 that cost $250,000 ..(I think that was the # and price )..

or are you talking the little portable jobs in Musicians Friend for $500?

I don't have the ears, enough [current] pro experience to really know, but I feel that my cheapie computer setup kicks some serious booty. Better than the 2" multitracks I have used (MCI, Scully, Ampex). I have never really had a lot of hands on experience with a Studer, however. But, I tend to think Studer machines are/were built better and the sound isn't as much better than a properly calibrated MCI/Sony machine for instance. But, I wouldn't bet my bottom dollar on that statement though.

But anyway... all digital seems kinda "budget" to me... at least nowadays in comparison to costs of analog in its heyday.

 

[sjoko2]

The simple fact is that, in reality, there is no such thing as budget analogue, or budget digital if you want to produce top quality results.

You can get outstanding sound with a good condition, well calibrated analogue machine, and you can get outstanding sound with a digital system / machine, providing it is high bitrate / clockspeed with very good converters and an accurate clock

A top Studer (or my favorite, a re-conditioned Stevens) costs a lot of money and requires constant time and maintenance.

On the other hand, a bank of 8 top converters cost almost 10k, and that's for just 8 converters, so 24 of those plus a good clock would set you back 30k plus.

The second, all digital option I would now consider the best, as converter / digital technology has now reached a point where it has surpassed anything possible with analogue ...... at a price
(157dB dynamic range is now a reality). The only thing lacking is the "sound" of an analogue machine, but then we're talking about the sound of a calibrated machine in combination with an engineer who posesses the knowledge to use tape saturation if and when it is deemed appropriate, and even that effect we can now apply through means of modelling.

But then.............. that's just the recording media. What is equally, if not more important is the quality of the sound that get into the recording media, and for that you need good microphones, good preamps, a good acoustic environment, good cabling, and a good system to run it, which all cost a lot of money.

In other words, recording has now become affordable and within the financial reach of just about anyone who wants to do it.
However ...... high end, high quality recording is still very expensive, period.

 

[mixmkr]

However ...... high end, high quality recording is still very expensive, period.

as compared to going out to dinner, perhaps. However, your mention of 24 good converters and a clock at 30k is only the price of a car. Add another 30k for odds and ends (the two car family), and you have a pretty good sounding setup, imo. Yeah..sure there is cable, the room to run the cables thru, and the sweat used in learning how to run the cables thru the room.. (especially if you really want to get serious)..BUT,compared to the "good ole days" its cheap... you gotta admit that. Shoot, you get a 2nd mortgage on the old homestead....there's the easy money too...

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

What started me on this was seeing a few threads where someone mentions using analog to get that "non-digital" sound, but they're talking about PortaStudio-type analog!!!

And THAT is what cracked me up!

 

[mixmkr]

yeah...I hear ya Bruce...

and what cracks me up is how some people wander from subject to subject.... I wouldn't know about that though.

 

[Badger]

I replaced the bulbs in my studio track lights today. Those new reveal bulbs that are supposed to make everything happy or something. Now I can see what I'm playing.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

When I was 12 I did a nice analog recording. This should crack you up as well.

I wanted to record all four parts of a trumpet fanfare I had written. I had at my disposal: Small sony boombox/cassette recorder (actually very good recording quality compared to all the trash boomboxes I've heard in the fifteen years since), and a home stereo.

So, I played and recorded the first track to tape (cassette). I played that tape in the home stereo, and played along with it to record the second part (along with the playback of the first) to tape. Used that tape in the home stereo for playback and recorded the third part, and again for the fourth. It took several trials to get the levels more or less equal between parts.

Also, the tape speed matching between cassette recorder and home stereo was not so great. Each time I played back the recorded tape in the stereo, it was pitch shifted down nearly a quarter step. I started tuned as sharp as possible, and had just about pulled the main tuning slide out to match tuning for the fourth part.

But, the really surprising thing is that the final sound quality wasn't that much worse than just recording a single part to that same cassette recorder. I played the parts in the order 4, 3, 2, 1... so as the parts became more important they had fewer generations of record/play loops, and retained a better quality. The lead sounded pretty good (if a bit odd due to the unnatural tuning of the instrument), and the counter melody (2) was pretty decent as well. Harmonies filled in just fine, and you didn't really notice that they were 3 or 4 generations old.



Is that the "good analog sound" you're referring to?

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Hey BD -- I did the same type of sound-on-sound thing when I was a young teen (13) -- but I never for a minute thought of it as "getting that analog sound"!!!!!!!!

It's just that with the availability of 2 recording formats (digital and analog), and at various price points in either format, novices are likening budget analog to older high-end analog technology (presumably because they heard such nonsense as "cold, sterile digital")... and there's really no way to stop the proliferation of these misconceptions....!

 

[Toki987]

Ok, this is pretty exciting, Would my Vesta Fire 4 track cassette fall into the high end or the budget analog? Maybe I should keep it out in the shed in that old box so it gains more value huh?

But then, if I recorded something on it and then dumped it to a cd wouldn`t it be digital then? Or if I listened to it over the computer is it still analog or digital. A guy could really get lost between the two concepts....

 

[Badger]

The easiest way to tell if it is digital or analog, if you have to push a button on the side of the watch to see the time, its digital, if it has little pointers that move around the surface of the watch, behind a little glass window, its analog.

 

[Toki987]

The easiest way to tell if it is digital or analog, if you have to push a button on the side of the watch to see the time, its digital, if it has little pointers that move around the surface of the watch, behind a little glass window, its analog.

yours came with a free watch? I was ripped off years ago!!!

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Vesta Fire 4 track cassette fall into the high end or the budget analog?

Hmmm... tough one -- but I'm gonna say... BUDGET!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sennheiser]

Have you hugged your 1/2" machine today?

 

[sonusman]

It constantly amazes me how people don't hear the obvios differences between analog and digital anymore. Cheap, thin, sterile digital has won!!! Whoopy!!!

Bruce, to tell you the truth, I am STILL trying to find a workable way to track stuff to ANY analog first then dumping it to digital. But hey, that is just my inexperienced ears telling me lies I suppose eh?

Get off the high horse friend. Some people EXPECT the sound of analog, ANY analog on certain things, and will trade off headroom and frequency response to get "that sound" that I have ONLY heard analog get, even cheap analog. Would I do it? Probably not. But after having messed with this digital thing exclusively for 7 years now, I am about fed up with it really. I am not going to go into it any further though. I am just rambling and pitching YOU shit for starting this thread. This thread serves NO OTHER purpose but as a passive agressive way to ridicule opinions that differ from your buddy. You can't kid a kidder here! I have been there. Take a break for a while and let people record their non-professional audio and ask their uninformed questions, and make their lack of experience statements. It is not the end of the world that others expect something different than you do.

Ed

 

[M.Brane]

It constantly amazes me how people don't hear the obvios differences between analog and digital anymore. Cheap, thin, sterile digital has won!!! Whoopy!!!

Some people EXPECT the sound of analog, ANY analog on certain things, and will trade off headroom and frequency response to get "that sound" that I have ONLY heard analog get, even cheap analog.

That is why my guitar rig remains 100% analog, still have a turntable hooked to my stereo, haven't sold my 4-track machines and have a cassette deck in my truck.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

I hear ya Ed... I didn't post this thread as a "high horse" - more like "simply observational"........ (and hoping that some novice somewhere may read it and realize that "hey - when pros talk about 'analog sound - they AREN"T talking about analog PortaStudios!")

 

[James Argo]

Can I spread the wing of the thread ? Some ppl still confused, wheter some software based mastering tools (like Sonar, SoundForge, etc...) are Pro or budget ? Compared with some like Protools, or RADAR which combined Software & Hardware. Can we say..." I use pro mastering system" refer to SONAR here ? or...